Photograph of a stile gate in a green and rolling English landscape, and the title Danebury Hill

Welcome, Big Gay Fiction Podcast Visitors!

Step into the laboratory for the Story Grid Masterwork Experiment…

…where I’m writing a new novella under some strict experimental guidelines set by Story Grid creator Shawn Coyne.

The Masterwork Experiment aims to test Shawn’s newest and most granular Story Grid methods. Can replicating the beats and structure of Annie Proulx’s brilliant short novella Brokeback Mountain result in a fresh new story?

I’ll be writing about the process here over the ten-week Masterwork Experiment.

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For the next couple of months, I’ll be blogging about the Masterwork Experiment here on my site, covering things that may not fit the podcast format.

  • What it’s like to podcast with Shawn Coyne.
  • Snippets of scenes that I test.
  • Character sketches.
  • Research.
  • Images. 
  • My thoughts about representation in fiction.
  • Doubts and fears!
  • Struggles to stay within the constraints of the experiment.
  • Who knows? Maybe audio outtakes.

Will the process feel creative or stifling? Will the experiment succeed or fail? Subscribe to the Danebury Hill blog posts to get the story behind the story. 

Anne's recording studio, a small rather scruffy room lined with dark gray acoustical eggcrate foam panels and containing pink carpet, an orange metal stool, a laptop, a tablet, a balance perch, a stand microphone and pop screen, a bunch of wires, and a pair of very bright light fixtures that look remarkably like breasts.
My home studio